254 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



more often used as a lever to help an agitation than as a 

 valid and living principle of action. 



On the other side of the picture, the benefits resulting to 

 the native population from the changed circumstances are 

 obvious, however much Radical agitators may strive to prove 

 the contrary. Let any one who knew the Highlands thirty 

 or forty years ago pass through the country now. Who 

 made those excellent roads, who built those trim shooting- 

 boxes, and set up those miles on miles of fencing ? Who 

 but the peasants of the country, paid by the gold of the much- 

 abused sporting tenant ! Again, who watches and protects 

 the game, traps the weasels and the stoats, the wild cats and 

 the foxes ? but the local peasantry, now finding congenial 

 occupation as gillies and keepers. There are kirks for them 

 to worship in, schools equal to any in Europe for the training 

 of their children. Whence come the rates that provide these 

 things ? Once again, from the sporting tenant. Scotland, 

 under free trade, and with all the competition of the world 

 against her barren soil and her ungenial climate, can no 

 longer support her sons by tillage ; but Scotland as a play- 

 ground, as a land of sport, as a producer of game, offers 

 chances to her people, if they have but the sense to take 

 them, such as few countries can vie with. Even now the 

 government of Sweden are learning the lesson, and taking 

 steps for the afforesting of vast tracts of their country, with 

 a view to attracting some of the golden shower annually 

 poured forth over the playgrounds of Europe ; and they have 

 consulted with the best experts in Scotland on the conditions 

 most likely to ensure success. A movement like this forms 

 a refutation of especial value to the sentimental vapourings 

 of Professor Blackie and other political theorists, who 

 would fain go back for a century, in respect of one feature 

 in rural life, while retaining the habits, the requirements, 

 the responsibilities, the moral and intellectual training which 

 a century of progress has produced. 



But further changes and developments have taken place 



